72dpi is only sufficient for web graphic, NOT print! Is there REALLY no way to raise dpi for print purposes??? My goodness, if not, then what's the point of even using the software other than for web usage?

The DPI can be changed...hopefully laughingbird will let us know if when we change it.. if it also changes the DPI in the photorealistic mode. :question:

Click to expand...

As you might know the image is rendered hardware accelerated by your graphics card in order to perform those rather heavy math, which realtime 3-D rendering is, as fast as possible.

Now the problem is, that it is a matter of available VRAM how far we can go with the resolution for the output (file or printout) as we need to get the image from the graphics card.
The very bad news is: as soon as the VRAM is used up the application will crash very badly, so I chose to restrict the resolution to a maximum of 1600x1200 pixels in order to not rule out the lower spec machines. (or the ones running 20 heavy VRAM consuming apps at the same time for that matter) as we don't like crashes, which can mean a big loss of time and should under no circumstances happen.

Unfortunately for the before mentioned reason I can't tell how much VRAM is still available, as I simply don't get this info from the card.
From my POV I can raise the maximum amount, if the user is aware of the fact, that he will be on his own risk and may crash at any time while rendering the image.

It might be a viable solution to add another undocumented feature for the experienced user in a later release, but meanwhile you are stuck with these 1600x1200 pixels.

Now as was stated above you only get 72 dpi images upon export. That's spot on. As for the image export I use the higher resolution for the antialiasing in that I scale the image down to 72 dpi, thus achieving the anti-aliasing. There is no other way to do that for me and that's the way most apps do AA and in fact that is no problem for screen display as you screen can't display more than 72 dpi anyway.

Now for print the story is different, your printer actually CAN print a higher resolution as 72dpi and you definately need a higher resolution when printing. And on the other hand you definately DON'T want AA when printing as you CAN print at higher resolution. (AA in fact is just a workaround for the 72 dpi resolution of the standard screen)

Therefore if you PRINT the image from within the 3-D modul the higher resolution isn't used for AA and hence you can achieve a higher reolution , when printing, WITHOUT AA (exactly as jaggy as you see it on the screen in realtime 3-D, but as the jaggies are much smaller it simply looks sharp on your print)

Now it depends on what platform you are, how to get at the printer output as a plain file. On OSX you can simply choose "save as pdf" or "Save as Postscript" and you are set with a bitmap in a higher resolution. On win you will have to install some kind of "print to PDF" extension to be able to print from within the regular print dialog. I leave this answer to the windows savy folks... ;-)

I can pretty easily change the modul and only re-export it and you folks could simply replace only the modul without a problem (right now it would mean a download of more or less 700K to replace one file in your install folder), but I will have to wait for the OK of the boss, as there are very good reasons NOT to like the idea of 'customized voodoo' versions with unsupported features floating around, which are not QA'd as he might like them to be...

Acronym alert!
The following message contains many many acronyms not for the faint of heart...

Alex is right on.
If you would like to print in high res, Hold down the SHIFT key and push the print icon at the bottom of the "Photorealistic" screen.

This will print a higher rez image for you.
Getting a "Print to PDF" utiltity is a great option. Mac users have this built into the print dialog menu. Windows users, try download.com to search for a nice "print to PDF" utility.

There are still a few more updates to make on the eCover Creator. One thing I need to fix are the extensions when naming a saved item.

If you export one of the spinning eCovers - and don't include ".swf" in the name, the Flash file may not be read properly with HTML.

In the Photorealistic mode, if you don't put in an extension (.gif, .jpg, .png) it reverts to a .txt file!

However! Alex has included a genius way of exporting to any format. You simply need to name the file with the extension you want the file to be:
Jpeg: name the file "Myfile.jpg" .. for a GIF, name the file "Myfile.gif"

This works - and will be documented on the site later today with:
PNG, GIF, TIF, JPG, BMP, EPS (although not vector EPS), and a few others.

Try exporting the image (click on the camera at the bottom of the screen) and hold down the SHIFT key at the same time.

Name the file "MyFile.PDF" and see if the quality is better.
This saves as high rez.

- Marc

Click to expand...

I wasn't speaking of EXPORTING to file to get higher resolution images, but rather PRINT and save the PRINT output to a file.

When simply exporting to a file (Camera icon) I use the "higher resolution" just to achieve anti-aliasing. So, when clicking on the camera icon while holding SHIFT you still get a 72 dpi output, but the level of anti-aliasing is double as good.

To get at higher resolution images WITHOUT antia-aliasing (which is desirable for print and also looks good in a PDF) you need to get at the output for PRINT. So basically you do a printout by clicking on the printer icon (hold down SHIFT while clicking to double the resolution from 144dpi to 288dpi) and from within the regular print dialog you choose to save as a file.
As I already mention, on OSX this functionality is built in, so there will always be the option to save as PDF in the print dialog box.
On windows you need additional software to save as a PDF file from within the print dialog. There used to be a "Print2PDF", which came with Acrobat (note, that I am NOT speaking of Acrobat READER but rather Acrobat, the PDF authoring software!)
I can figure, there must be a ton of other apps for windows today, which allow you to save the print output to a file from within the reqular print dialog, as you basically just need to 'get your hands' at the printer spool file and 'translate' the postscript to PDF (which is basically the same format). You can even open the postscript file ( -> .PS) in photoshop and some other imaging software packages directly.

As I already said these things are alreday in the software and would only need a user interface a the next release...